Natural disasters are an important source of vulnerability in the Caribbean region. Despite being one of the more disaster-prone areas of the world, it has the lowest levels of insurance coverage. This paper examines the vulnerability of Belizes public finance to the occurrence of hurricanes and...

This study explores the determinants of corporate bond spreads in emerging market economies. Using a largely unexploited dataset, the paper finds that corporate bond spreads are determined by firm-specific variables, bond characteristics, macroeconomic conditions, sovereign risk, and global...

This is an update and revision of our 2009 study. Using a broad dataset and an original methodology, this paper reports composite development gaps across economic, social and institutional sectors. We define development gap as the distance between the observed and the expected development level...

Using the 1996-2001 Chilean CASEN Panel Survey, this paper analyzes the impact on income of the switch from salaried employment to entrepreneurship (self-employment and leadership of micro-enterprises). By means of a difference-in-differences non-parametric matching estimator the paper...

This book contains a selection of the major presentations from the conference: "Policy-Based Finance and Alternatives for Financial Market Development" held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in early 1996. It explores the generally successful East Asian experiences with policy-based finance and...